well.. crap. thoughts on rita are working out so far. probably a cat 2 as it blows by the keys tomorrow. 100mph winds or so... key west will probably record hurricane force winds late in the afternoon. all you folks in dade/broward and such will probably be in and out from power outages (katrina probably knocked down a lot of the vulnerable foliage last month, and the winds will be weaker, so i'd expect a lot less). monroe county it's a different story... hope the folks told to evacuate got the message.
forecast tracks today shifted far to the north from yesterday as the models latched onto a stronger system and a weakening ridge. based on the synoptic pattern and trends i'd say that rita will continue wnw/w for the next 2 days and then gradually turn nw. i don't expect that right hook the gfs and a few others are advertising.. should come in on a gentle right glide... decelerating at landfall.. but accelerating over the next day or two. think it'll clear the gulf faster than progged.. probably reach texas overnight friday/saturday as opposed to late morning saturday. 00-08z. intensity i'm thinking will be the bad scenario some are advertising.. major hurricane, probably stronger than the nhc official. while out in the gulf rita may peak as a borderline 4/5, but will probably come in as a 3/4. pressure probably in the 930-950 range. should be the strongest hurricane to hit texas since carla in 1961. i'll put a preliminary bullseye at sargent... with the range being rockport to the sabine pass.
on the lighter side of things there's philippe. the storm is underwhelming in light of earlier intensity forecasts.. rita's outflow jet that earlier models weren't seeing is raking across the northern periphery of philippe, shoving it a little eastward and keeping it a minimal hurricane. philippe should probably keep tracking northward and zip out over the weekend as the earlier progged weakness in the western atlantic ridge fills and pumps up in rita's wake and the weakness in the central atlantic stay open and digs phil out. probably get a little stronger as rita gets further away.. and for the meanwhile keep any incoming system wannabes from the east from going westward. the wave near 40w has been sheared upstream of phil as well, and has been spitting out vortices with convective bursts like little fireballs... up nnw and into the shear zone streaking in from the nw. ssd put a 1.5 t-rating on this thing and that is total crap. there's no llc or coherent convection with the wave axis anymore. these pieces of energy are banking around philippe.. maybe keeping the eastern side formidable, also possibly funneling some wave energy around the storm. that little vortex that snuck around philippe the other day has smeared out near puerto rico, and some of its energy chased rita westward.. but this general area will have to be watched down the road, which i'll get into later.
synoptic pattern down the road... i'm thinking it's going to change more than the cpc forecast is calling for right now. i think the 18z gfs has the shift to a more amplified pattern with the ridge progressing eastward into the atlantic, knocking the heights back up off the east coast. this doesn't agree with the cpc forecast, but i'm kind of expecting the persistent pattern we've had to shift soon. joe b has been talking about a pattern-pulse system popping up near the bahamas around the weekend... with that big high coming down into the northeast this weekend the surface pressures should fall west of philippe. so whatever gets worked around philippe into that region will be trying to mix it up. the pressure falls should also act upon the wave that currently has invest 97L on it... which should be near the eastern caribbean at that time. pressure falls on a slow-moving wave... yeah, same deal. gfs shows something coming up out of there, actually towards cuba/florida, early in october. nothing significant near the bahamas, though the nam and nogaps seem to be catching that a little better. just something to watch, for now. other stuff appears in the eastern atlantic as well, though that's pie in the sky right now.
rita isn't pie in the sky, it's a real threat. texas needs to get ready for this one.
HF 0146z20september